Downloads & Free Reading Options - Results

The use of simulation games is considered by which the college teacher addresses selected topics by having students engage in activities that approximate the realities of a social situation. Simulations offer a stimulus for examining theoretical models and their applicability to everyday social situations. The Prisoner's Dilemma is presented as an example of a frame game, or a game that can be played with a changed scenario and payoff chart while allowing essentially the same preparation, rules, and strategy for introducing, running, and debriefing. The Prisoner's Dilemma presents a situation where pairs of players must decide what they will do as prisoners: confess or not confess to a crime that they are accused of committing together. The players make their decisions independently and without knowing what the other will decide. The players make 10 separate decisions while sitting back-to-back during 10 rounds of play. Among the cognitive objectives of the game are: to learn that under the American criminal justice system a person can often obtain a reduced sentence by turning state's evidence and bargaining for leniency; to learn that the pursuit of one's own self-interest does not necessarily lead to social benefit; and to learn that people who make the same decisions often have different reasons for those decisions. Affective objectives are to feel the effects of restricted communication when making decisions directly involving other people and to discover that under pressure they may behave in a way that they normally find morally objectionable. A checklist for using games for instructional purposes is included. (SW)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert